Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Now, usually, the strong can support the weak, the rich can support the poor; but not the other way around. It seems therefore hard to understand how, in Nature, it is the other way around: the lower creatures support the higher creatures: the soil (minerals) support the vegetables, the vegetables support the animals, and all three support man. Take bread, for instance. Bread has no life, no mental or intellectual qualities. Yet, when a person eats bread (or other foods), it is not only transformed into human flesh and blood-which is a most wonderful transformation in itself-but also into those extraordinary cells of tissue which make up the human brain, which enables a person to think and to speak. A child feeding on cereals and other foods grows and develops, not only bodily, but also mentally and spiritually. How is this possible? Does bread have mental and spiritual qualities, which pass on to man as he eats it?

The answer is that it is not the physical matter of the bread (the carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, etc.) which gives and sustains life. For in every particle of matter, there is the "word" of God which created it out of nothing and constantly says to it: Be! It is this "word" of God which is the real thing, while the physical matter is but an outer "shell," very much like our body is the outer shell or frame for our; inner, and hidden, soul. It is this real thing -the "word" of God, which "brings forth bread from the earth" -which really gives life and sustenance to the human being.

To make it a little clearer: When God willed to create the world, there was nothing at first, and God created every- thing out of nothing by saying, "Let there be!" The process of creation has continued ever since. If God should withdraw His "word" for one instant, everything would turn back to nothing as before Creation. Thus it is the "word" of God, or "that which issues from God's mouth," which is the real bread that gives life to the person eating it, and with it all those mental and spiritual qualities which make up a human being.

John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

John 6:48-59 "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven--not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum."